March 20, 2026 Editor, The News-Gazette: Recently I received mailed flyers that are examples of the current use of misdirection and misinformation in political discourse. Both surprisingly urged the immediate use of mail-in ballots, despite some important politician trying to abolish mail-in voting, an apparent effort to have it both ways. One flyer had the shameful audacity to compare the present voting situation to the horrible era of Jim Crow. Another flyer decried “Gerrymandering!” as though unmindful of its use multiple times in the past as well as just a few months ago in Texas, again apparently trying to have it both ways.
Once it was “Find me 11,000 votes.” Then it was “Find me five congressional seats” in Texas. Apparently one can mess with Texas. So that’s the origin of the “Vote Yes” idea. As the Rolling Stones sang “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try you sometimes get what you need.” That’s what “Vote Yes” is all about - the temporary need to maintain the chance to return Congress to its proper function in the check and balance nature of our government.
I used to kid W&L students from Texas (a substantial number over 40 years) that there would be no Texas without Virginia’s Rockbridge County (Sam Houston’s birthplace). It seems somehow appropriate for Virginia to fight back and help provide needed balance to the Texas “gerrymandering!” JIM BOWEN Lexington
